Gift Stories

Last summer, Brayden, who was six at the time, was on a Disney Cruise with his family when he suddenly started feeling sick. His stomach became distended and began to hurt. After taking an x-ray, the ship’s doctor saw fluid in his abdomen and suspected a burst appendix. That was enough to get them evacuated…

Carly’s life has been anything but normal.  A couple months shy of her second birthday, she woke up with a limp that just got worse. By the next day, she could not even squat down to play. Her doctor could not find anything wrong on an x-ray. But Carly’s blood work was another story. Her…

Matthew’s parents knew something was not right. At six months, he wasn’t swallowing the way most babies his age could. At 20 months, he still wasn’t standing, much less walking. Despite a lot of poking and prodding, doctors did not find the cause until Matthew was almost 2 1/2 years old: a brain tumor. It…

Asher is not even three years old yet, and he’s already been through more than most people will go through in their entire lives. Diagnosed with a retinoblastoma – cancer of the retina – at the tender age of four months, Asher has been put under anesthesia 30 times for laser treatments to his eye….

Riley is one of those six-year-old boys who is all boy. A “play T-ball til you drop” kind of kid. So when he started complaining of not feeling well at his last game of the season this past May, his parents knew something was wrong.   At first the doctors thought strep throat. But then…

At first, Alyssa and her family thought it was just strep throat. But the (almost) 15-year-old could not kick a fever that spiked up and down. So back to the doctor they went. After the blood work results came in, Alyssa’s mom was told to get in the car and drive Alyssa straight to the…

Ten-year-old Kyle is the kind of kid who makes friends with everyone. His mom says teachers and counsellors often pair him with kids being picked on or kids with disabilities because he is always kind and has a way of drawing them into a group. So it was out of character last June when Kyle…

Jocelyn’s parents noticed it first – a slight flashing or glowing when their daughter moved her right eye. They did not know what to make of it.  Then this photograph, taken at Jocelyn’s third birthday party, captured it. A trip to the pediatrician turned into a trip to the ophthalmologist which turned into a trip to…

For 4-year-old Maybin, it all started with a small limp about a year and a half ago. The doctor thought she just needed some ibuprofen for swollen knees. But over the next few days, she declined rapidly, so the doctor did blood work. What followed was a word no one wanted to hear: leukemia. Since then, Maybin’s…

Six-year-old Braden has been in the cancer game so long that he actually met Summer Dale. Of course, he doesn’t remember; he was only two years old. They met in the cancer clinic one day and exchanged wristbands with their names on them. Summer wore Braden’s for a very long time. That was four years ago,…